SNEED Speed

NASA-SE 8 Hour Endurance Race

2011-12-22T09:56:00.010-05:00

The final endurance race of the NASA Southeast 2011 season took place on December 2nd at Road Atlanta. This 8 hour race is the longest on the schedule, making the preparation much more intense. Many items were replaced, including a fresh 2.5L engine. Any enduro that lasts over about 2-3 hours, the chances of mechanical failures go up tremendously.

The car ran strong right off the trailer and the team qualified on the pole for the race by having the most overall points for the season. Just before the race, Kenneth Sneed, crew chief gathered the drivers to go over the final driving positions, estimated pit stops and driver changes. The driver lineup included Jason Swenk, Steve Whitcomb, Mike Stinnett and Chris Sneed. In the minutes leading up to the start of the race, some confusion on grid caused the Sneed car to be lined up in the 6th spot instead of the pole position. In a race with multiple classes at once, it is easy to see how this could happen, since some of the faster classed cars thought they were in front of the Sneed’s Speed Shop BMW 325i race car, affectionately called Snowwhite. In a 50 minute sprint race, this would be a fatal error, in an 8 hour endurance race, it’s not as big a deal.

GREEN FLAG

Jason Swenk piloted the Sneed BMW down the hill through turn 12 to take the green flag. After just a few minutes into the race, Jason radioed that the car lost a lot of power and caused him to be hit from behind and spun off track. Luckily, he was able to quickly turn the car around and limp back to the pits. Once on pit road, Chris Sneed diagnosed the power issue as a problem with the #6 coil pack. The team replaced the coil pack and the spark plug and sent Jason back out. One half of a lap later, Jason radioed that the car felt great, but was now down on power again. Jason pulled the car back into the pits and the team decided to replace the #1 and #2 coil packs and the remaining 5 spark plugs.

At this point, the race is about an hour in and the Sneed team BMW has been on pit road for almost half of that time. Endurance races are won by staying out of the pits and making fast consistent laps for long periods of time. At this point, the team hoped that the car would hold together and that the mechanical gremlins were gone. Either way, they were down to the first place E1 car by close to 20 laps.

fter the repairs, Jason finished his driving stint with no other contact or mechanical issues and handed the car to Mike Stennent. With the problems behind the team, Mike was able to click off consistent lap times, keeping the Sneed car moving. After approximately an hour at the helm, Mike pitted and handed the car over to Steve Whitcomb. The Sneed team fueled, changed drivers and were out in less than a minute - these fast pit stops would save valuable time in the coming hours. During Steve's hour, he was able to catch a couple of cars and take two positions back. After about an hour around the 12 turns of Road Atlanta, Steve brought Snowwhite in and handed it to Chris Sneed.

At the 4 Hour Mark

By the time Chris sped out of the pit box, the clock struck the 4 hour mark. If the Sneed team was to win, they needed some luck, more quick laps and no mistakes on pit road. During Chris' session behind the wheel, he caught and passed the 4th place and 3rd place cars in the E1 class, moving the team into second place with around 3 hours to go. Meanwhile, back in the pits, Kenneth looked at the gap between first and second place and came up with an alternate plan to keep the Sneed car out on track and gaining as many laps on the 1st place car as possible. He reshuffled the driving order, and deleted one driver change. The race would finish with Mike, Jason and Chris. This means that they would only stop two more times after Mike got in the car.

With Mike back in the car, he traded position back and forth with the 3rd place car until a penalty on pit road gave Mike a lap cushion. After 45 minutes out on track, Mike brought the E36 BMW back in the pits and like clockwork, the team fuleled the car and handed it back to Jason for around 1 hour in the drivers seat. A few minutes into his session, the Sneed team retook the lead in the E1 class. Jason continually clicked off clean laps and the call was made to keep him out on track about 15 minutes longer, but at some point during his session his radio stopped working. As Jason pulled in, Chris wasn't quite ready to go and had to quickly get his helmet and HANS device buckled and jump in the car. The pit stop was longer than usual, but still came in under 2 minutes!

With a 2 lap lead and the sun sinking in the Georgia sky, Chris just needed to make consistent laps to keep the lead. The last 1.5 hours went by smoothly as Chris' transponder tripped every 1 minute and 43 seconds. With 30 minutes to go, up by 6 laps, Kenneth made the decision to come in for a quick fuel only stop to ensure that the car wouldn't run out.

CHECKERED FLAG

As the clock struck the 8 hour mark, the Sneed team BMW crossed the start finish line in the winning position in the E1 class and 16th overall. This ensured the Sneed team the E1 season championship and clenched the overall season championship by 8 points over Drew Ewing in his BMW M3.

Off to the track next weekend!!

2011-10-13T14:29:00.002-04:00

We are off to the track next weekend Oct 22/23 for the Great Pumpkin Run at CMP. We'll be sprint racing both days in GTS2. This is a great test for the new engine before the 8hrs of Road Atlanta Dec 2nd.

Race Report for NASA's June Jam - 3 Hour Enduro from Road Atlanta

2011-06-28T05:36:00.009-04:00

GREEN, GREEN, GREEN!!!
Jason Swenk drove the first stint in the Sneed Speed BMW from the pole position and stretched out to a comfortable lead over Mike Mollory in his BMW M3. About 17 minutes into the race, a full course caution stacked up the field. When the track went green again Mollory was able to get by Jason. Jason paced behind Mike for about 4 laps under team orders not to battle too hard early in the 3 hours race. A quick spin by Jason let Mollory pull away and the 3rd place car, the Discovery parts 240Z caught up to Jason. Jason raced with the Discovery parts car until his scheduled pit stop and driver change at 1hr 25mins.
The Sneed BMW pulled into the pit box in a tight battle for 2nd. Kenneth Sneed and Corbin Heist went to work on the car. Jason had communicated that the car was getting very loose, so the decision was made to change the rear tires and tighten the car back up. They put in 10 gallons of Renegade 110 octane race fuel and 2 new Hoosier R6s race slicks for the back. Chris Sneed took over driving duties from Jason as well at the stop.

A quick pit stop and driver's change allowed the Sneed BMW to regain its position over the Discovery parts 240z. After just one lap the power steering pump locked up causing a loss of power assist and a very brief second of steering lock up. Unfortunately, this brief lock up happened just as Chris was entering turn 3. Chris drove the car off straight into a very luckily placed grassy area on the track and was able to come back out on to track.

The off track excursion removed the front splitter, the lower half of the bumper and caused the brake ducts to get stuffed under the car. Chris brought the car around and into the pit box but couldn't’t get in straight because another car was in the pit box behind Sneed’s. Chris drove the car in nose first and Kenneth and Corbin went right to work removing the damaged parts and checking over the car. The damage was repaired in 8 mins and Kenneth sent Chris back out with orders to be careful because there was nothing to protect the radiator anymore (think about what half of the NASCAR field looks like at the end of a Bristol race). Chris made a good drive with a less than perfect car. With the splitter gone the car had no front down force to balance out the rear wing, causing massive understeer in the high speed corners. Chris managed to click off consistent laps for the next 1.5hrs lapping the Discovery Parts entry twice as they were off the pace trying to manage their tires and finish without another stop. With 2 laps to go the Sneed car started sputtering and Chris knew he was almost out of gas. With no pressure from cars in class Chris coasted the back stretch and down the hill to see the white flag for one lap to go. On the final lap he drove at half throttle and then coasted again down the back stretch. Coming out of turn 10B to go up the hill the car died but instantly re-fired and got to the top of the hill and coasted to the bottom and across the finish line.

All things considered, it was a solid day for the Sneed Speed BMW team. Even though the Sneed team didn’t win, they broke their 3 hour curse and faced their first in-race crash damage and still managed to finish 5th in class out of 8 cars. The Sneed Speed team also retained the NASA Southeast Endurance Racing points lead in the E1 class.

(this is how we finished the race)

After our off track incident, we ran over the brake duct hosing, drug it on the ground for a lap and all we had to do was put a little racer's tape on a couple of spots, no deformation and it wasn't severed. Sneed Ducting is STRONG!

Next stop The Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge at VIR July 22nd.

Pot of Gold Enduro Update

2011-03-25T06:20:00.008-04:00

"We knew our 180,000 mile motor wasn't going to last forever"

After winning the CMP 3 hour enduro, Team Solar Sneed started on the outside pole at Road Atlanta with Mike Stennitt at the wheel. When the green flag dropped Mike tried to hold off the 2nd and 3rd place cars but his inexperience at Road Atlanta allowed them to slip by. This was no problem since enduros aren't won on the first lap. After the first few laps the field settled in and the team was running in 4th.

At about 40 minute in, a mistake let the 5th place car slip by the Sennitt. Mike came in for the first scheduled pit stop and the team dumped 10 gallons of Renegade 110 octane in and Jason Swenk took the wheel for the next hour. When Jason left the pit box Kenneth Sneed spotted a gas puddle under the car so Jason had to come back in to check it out. It turned out to just be splash from filling and nothing to worry about.

Jason then proceeded to clink off fast consistent laps until the next pit stop at the end of the second hour. Jason handed the car to Chris Sneed, 4th place in class with about an hour left. Kenneth dumped 5 gallons of 110 octane in and the car was back on track in under a minute including the driver change. Chris put the hammer down and pulled the Sneed car up to 2nd in 6 laps. "With our super fast pit stops, Mike and Jason keeping the car in good position I was in a good position to win when I left the pits. Kenneth did a great job setting up the car too, it was really working," said Chris.

However, 8 laps in to Chris's stint, he down shifted for turn 5 and the crank shaft snout cracked causing the engine to lose its timing and quit. Chris coasted behind the wall at turn 7 but the Solar Sneed team's day was done. It was a frustrating end to an overall strong showing.

The team put in enough laps to officially finish but the team could only watch as the other cars continued to make laps. The silver lining of the enduro was that team Solar Sneed logged enough laps to finish 4th but a disqualification of the 3rd place car moved us to 3rd in the results, still in the hunt for the E1 championship.

…Next stop Road Atlanta in June.

CMP Winter Meltdown Video Recap

2011-02-17T09:11:00.005-05:00

Check out the video. We added footnotes so it will be easier for you to follow along. Be on the lookout for such things as Spec Miatas bumping, Spec E30s losing bumpers, etc.

Enjoy! Got to go order some new Hoosier tires...

Season Finale at Road Atlanta

2010-12-08T06:39:00.002-05:00

If you read the enduro post just before this, you know we had an "interesting" day on Friday.

Saturday would prove to be more of the same in the "interesting" department.

The car ran great in qualifying and Chris posted a personal best in Snowwhite at 142.9. We started in the 3rd spot at the start with rain looming. We did not have a decision to make as far as tire setup - we didn't have rain tires.

The smart thing to do would have been to just say, "hey, it's been a good season, let's just park it and watch." I think we all know what happened next...

Race Recap

The race start, it's raining, foggy and the inside of the windshield needs defrosting (race cars don't have defrosters). So there is very little visibility and we're hoping to just lay back, stay out of trouble and get some good rain experience. Many of our competitors had rain tires and we just wanted to stay out of their way. As we crest the hill, I see LOTS of brake lights in front of me and the car I'm following almost comes to a stop. Apparently, a couple of cars got together going into 3 and slowed the field tremendously. Back to the action...Chris bails to the outside of the track, with the left side in the ~~grass~~ mud.

After getting through that mess, we make a few tense laps before the rain causes a full course yellow. On the restart, I let a couple of Miatas pass on their fancy rain tires thinking that we had second wrapped up if nothing else happened. The checkered flag waived and to our surprise, we finished first. Apparently, the incident earlier in the race caused the first place car to have to pit leaving Snowwhite in 1st place! What a weekend!

NASA-SE TTC Champions

We also wrapped up the Time Trial season with the TTC Championship in hand. We ran a full time trial season and a partial GTS2 season. It's been a great year and there are lots of people to thank. Here's the short list:

Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine

Starboard Acconting

Tein suspension

Carbotech brakes

Rik's Motor Company

Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

Brisk Spark Plugs

Hoosier Tires

Health Start

Sweet Tea Customs

Sneed Speed team members

Thanks also to our friends, family, customers and supporters for the encouragement and great conversations throughout the season.

We're looking forward to a great 2011!

NASA - SE Santa's Toy Run 8 Hour Enduro

2010-12-08T06:05:00.006-05:00

Last Thursday, we headed down to sunny, warm Road Atlanta, just north of the metro area in Braselton, GA. Unfortunately, the weather seems to have already broken in Georgia and we had to break out the sweatshirts, jackets and toboggans.

We competed in the 8 Hour Enduro on Friday. Our drivers were Chris Sneed, Mike Stennitt and Jason Swenk. Read below to get a recap of the enduro. Mike started out the race quickly having never been to Road Atlanta. He did get a couple of 'pace' laps before the green flag dropped. Mike said the first lap was intense, but he really held his own and did a great job staying clean. Jason drew the second spot and drove the car beautifully and had us in position for the overall win.

Chris drove 3rd and had high hopes of bringing the car home for an overall win until something went wrong at the rear of the car. Chris had to limp the car back to the pits. While coming down the long back straightaway, he noticed a little smoke exiting the rear of the car. Once in the pits it was evident that something was on FIRE (in fact, a corner worker spotted the fire and the fire truck was in the pits just after the car arrived).

It turns out that the fire was started by a backfire that lit the rubber exhaust hangers. Apparently, the exhaust came unhooked at some point during the race causing this to happen. The excitement was over and we moved the car behind the wall to figure out what the issue was with the car. After a thorough inspection, we found that the crank key had been sheared off and the engine was losing it's timing. Luckily, there is a BMW junk yard a couple miles from the track and Kenneth ran over to grab a replacement. Kenneth and Joel feverishly worked to get the car back together and we actually got the car back out with just a few minutes remaining. Unbelievably, we finished 3rd overall!

It was truly a T-E-A-M effort and a lot of fun.

You can see additional pictures on our Facebook page.

NASA - SoutheastSanta's Toy Run

2010-12-08T06:05:00.001-05:00

E9x Sneed R aeRo parts

2010-11-11T06:12:00.008-05:00

We've developed several new parts for the newest generation of BMW 3-series sedans and coupes(E90-E93). These Sneed R aeRo parts are built specifically to perform on track. Unfortunately, they won't help you much getting groceries from the store unless you live near this famous toll-road.

Virginia Beach native Ken Van de Water dropped off his car at the shop a couple weeks ago for us to install these new items. These parts have been developed for some time on a previous 'test' vehicle, but Ken's car will be the first car 'sporting' them at the track throughout the Southeast.

Sneed R aeRo front splitter

Made of the same rigid ABS plastic material we created for manyl E36 race/track cars. It helps provide a significant amount of front downforce and increases front grip.

Sneed R aeRo carbon adjustable rear wing

This wing is the exact same wing on Snowwhite (our E36 race car) modifed to fit line lines of the E9x body. The mounts are a little different size to get the wing into the 'clean' air for the E9x body.

Sneed R brake cooling ducts

As any track enthusiast gets faster, they will start to find weak points. One that is easy to correct is overheating of the front brakes. Our Sneed R brake cooling kit helps funnel fresh air straight onto the brakes to provide even cooling. It keeps you from boiling brake fluid and helps keep your front pads from glazing/overheating/fading.

We snapped a couple pictures of the finished product - This is one aggressive looking E9x M3!

You can see Ken's car throughout the southeast at the track! He drove down last week from Virginia Beach, picked up the car and kept heading south until he got to Kershaw, SC - home of Carolina Motorsports Park. Needless to say, he's tested the parts and according to Ken, his car "rocks" and he feels that the car now has "tons of capability."

Customer Appreciation Day

2010-11-11T06:05:00.006-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to our Customer Appreciation Day a few weeks ago. We would have had these up sooner, but SEMA followed closely on the heels of this event and we didn't get around to posting until now.

Lots of fun, hanging out, music, food and fun had by everyone!

NASA OktoberFAST Race Update

2010-10-15T06:35:00.010-04:00

OktoberFAST with NASA was a great race weekend. Snowwhite was out battling for the GTS2 win. This is the first race with several new parts and the car is about 4 seconds faster (2.16.6) than it was in July at the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge. All that speeds is great, but it takes time to get the car dialed back in to a more neutral handling race car. The areo kit REALLY works!

We started in 6^th place on Saturday and battled a yellow 911 the entire race. It was a lot of fun racing back-and-forth for position. The 911 is lighter and had more power on the straights, but Snowwhite could really make a move under braking and coming through the roller coaster and out of turn 17A. The fun part of being in the German Touring Series (GTS2) is that we race against cars that are driven very differently but the end result is a similar lap time potential. It makes you a better racer because you really have to set up your next potential victim (Joke). So how did that battle with the yellow 911 finish up? Check out the video and see for yourself!

On Sunday, Snowwhite stared out in 5^th place. With the car dialed in a little more and getting a better rolling start, we managed to break through a couple positions to the podium. I drove a clean race, but honestly, it is going to take some time to get used to all the extra speed and the handling difference with the new aero package. It’s a dramatic difference, in some higher speed corners where Snowwhite was neutral, it is now tight. Hey, we’ll take more speed any day – we’ll get it adjusted and probably find a little more time.

Customer Appreciation Day THIS Saturday

2010-10-13T15:51:00.007-04:00

Customer Appreciation Day – Saturday, October 16^th

11:00 am – 4:00 pm

Cruise in. Listen to Live Music. Free food. Free Beer (yes, we said free).

It’s just our way stopping to say thank you for letting us enhance your car(s) over the last 7 years. If you haven't been to the shop in a while, come check out what's going on, heck, you might even win a door prize.

The weather looks perfect, come out and mingle with other gearheads.

See who's coming, you are a fan right?

2010-10-01T08:40:00.003-04:00

Off to Tarheel BMW club weekend to instrut at VIR. We are going to test the aero kit we built too. Hopefully it will pickup 2-3 seconds which would be awesome. Looking forward to going to the VIR club to eat and hanging out with clients and driving fast. Weather looks great so should be an awesome weekend. Kerri is going to drive it up to VIR this weekend so she can on Sunday in the 928. She'll finlly get to be GIP, Girl In a Porsche after a year of waiting for me to get the car fixed.

The Bat Mobil continues and will get its gauges today. Pete, the owner of the bat mobil is coming by to pick out a steering wheel and check on progess this morning. We have now fixed 1 of the 3 SR20DET 240SXs we have in the shop. We had to retime the cams to the crank shaft which is a big deal on the Sr20 but its running great now so i think he'll be happy. The 928 is running great now once we got the rear end fixed.

2010-09-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

Off to VIR with BMW club for instruting and testing new aero parts on Snowwhite this weekend. Then the big race at VIR the next weekend with NASA mid Atlantic.

2010-09-28T10:36:00.001-04:00

Ok so its been awhile and lots has happened. We got Snowwhite the BMW racecar done and it has won 5 out of 6 classes this year. Not to bad for a brand new car. Joe's MINI has got a new better faster motor and Kenneth is back on the track in Miss Piggy.

2009-03-25T12:43:00.002-04:00

Alrighty, I have not finished the story from Road Atlanta and now I have new stuff to tell you. So the quick end to the RA story is this. My student didnt show so I didnt have to instruct that was ok but I would have liked to. Mike crashed in practice and destoried the M3 and his ankle. He had to go to the hospital and we loaded the car in the trailer for him. Then to add to his bad luck the radiator in the tow truck blew out on the way home. So it took him about 4 more hours then it should have to get home but lucky for him he had a buudy with him to drive the truck and fill the radiator.
Me and Joe had a good weekend with no crashes and no offs. It did stop raining on Sunday but not long enough to dry the track. Kory and me finally got the E30 running so Lea could go out a drive. It was a bad crank sensor the whole time. Kory stuck with it for a day and a half in the cold and rain to get it fixed for her. I hope she took him out or...something :), she is his girlfriend. Its always fun to go to the track but I hope its dry next time. Next event is at CMP on April 3rd for a Turn One day.

This passed weekend me and Kenneth went down to the Street wise drift and car show to see Ryan and team N speed do some drifting. We sponsor Ryan and try to help the other guys out too. It was a nice day and we got there about 11. We walked around the car show and watched the drift practice. There were some nice cars there including a Viper, Ferrari 360, and a Aston Martin. We also saw a chick in a bikini modeling with cars. Never saw that before in person kind of werid cause she looks really out of place in a swim suit and she wasnt that hot and needed a tan. Sorry I didnt take a picture but I should have so ya'll could see. Anyway back to the drifting. We all ate lunch and then qualifing started. Things looked good for Ryan and Ricky both had great second runs. For some reason Ryan didnt make the cut but Ricky did and finished 5th overall. We are going to build Ryan's turbo motor for his Rx-7 this weekend so he should be able to throw some more smoke at the next event.

March Road Atlanta NASA SE

2009-03-19T12:12:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the SNEED Speed blog. This blog will mainly be about the on going racing advetures of me, Chris Sneed and my brother Kenneth. I'll start off with the most resent track weekend which was 3/14-15/09 at Road Atlanta with the NASA South East group.

Getting ready for the weekend went much better than I hoped and I hit the road around 2pm. Just me this time Kenneth was going to the beach and Kerri (my wife) had to work. The weather was good a little cloudy but no rain. The trip only took 4.5hrs with one stop, not to bad. I met up with Joe at the track, parked and jumped in his truck to go eat and to the hotel. I called Mike to tell him to meet us at the restaurtant. He of course wanted to know the name of the place which i didnt know. I told him they had great margartias and steaks. He was all for it and call him when I find it. Well I was almost right they have great margaritas but no steak - its a wing place, who knew? Anyway supper was good after Mike finally finds the place and Joe told Mike all kinds of stories about flyin airplanes for Peidmont and US Air. Mike's new so he gets all the stories. I think I could tell them now but they are always entertaining. Joe bought me supper which was very cool :) and we took off for the hotel. All hands meeting is at 7:00am. The rain had started but not to heavy...yet.

The next morning was a different weather deal over night the rain had set in and it was going to be a wet and cold weekend. After the all hands meeting and instructor meeting. I went and looked for my student Blue MINI. I was stoked but couldnt find him. So I lined up for first session with the HPDE 4 group to feel out the track before my Time Triall check ride. We go out under caution to 2 laps and then go green and then...red. WTF red flag? Thats means the whole field has to stop because of a bad crash. This is the top level group and we can't do 3 laps in the rain? this is going to be a long weekend. We go back to caution and I see what happened a Miata hit the turn 3,4 wall pretty good. The driver was out walking around but the car was toast. We go back to green and I hydroplane on some standing water before turn 6 and decide to go in before the MINI is shiny side down and my weekend is over.

I look around again for my student but they are not here. Looks like I dont have to work this weekend.